Kenneth’s cock slid from between me legs and it pulled me from my trance. Oh holy shit. I just fucked my boss. I somehow found the strength to stand from his lap and tried to ignore the sweet scent of his body leaking down my legs. I quickly gathered my clothes and pulled them on, hopping and jumping and legitimately making a fool of myself. My hands shook. My mind spun. It was hard to breathe. To catch my breath from what had happened. I needed a reason to get out. Any reason I could throw at him. Anything that wouldn’t make me look as terrible as I did at that moment.

“I should go make that itinerary,” I said.

Of course.

The one thing he chastised me for before he kissed me.

Before I kissed him back.

“Can you remember what we talked about?” Kenneth asked.

“Yeah. Yeah, uh… yeah, I can,” I said as I buckled my bra. “Tomorrow the meeting is at ten, then another one at one. Eat a decent breakfast because no lunch. Early dinner out. Not my job to save the company money, though that wasn’t an itinerary issue. Wednesday has one meeting. Eight in the morning. Three hours. First of the two big ones.”

I slid my shirt over my head and turned around. Kenneth’s naked body stood tall and his legs flexed with throbbing muscles. The night sky and the Switzerland backdrop framed his body in ways that robbed me of my ability to speak. The rings of his abs trickled up into a broad chest. A chest I could still feel pressed against mine. The glow around his body shadowed his strong features, but his eyes.

Those piercing blue eyes.

I could see them through the darkness.

“Uh… Thursday is the day to ourselves. Prep for Friday and Saturday’s meetings. Then we fly off very late Saturday, get back early Sunday, take Monday off. Back to work Tuesday.”

I watched Kenneth’s eyes rake over me, taking me in as I stood in my place.

“Correct,” he said.

“Great. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then.”

Before he could say anything else, I turned around and strode for the elevator. I was close to tears. The elevator dumped me off onto my floor and I couldn't get into my room fast enough. I shoved my shoulder into the door and slammed it behind me as tears flooded my vision.

What the hell had I been thinking?

That man was responsible for my father’s negligent firing. Possibly. I didn’t really know. But he was there. He worked with Instatech during the time it happened. There was a connection somehow. I knew it. Between that and my mother’s warning of him, I had to be cautious. And yet I’d slept with the man!

And I loved it.

Oh, how me made me feel. His strong hands that dwarfed my hips. His sculpted arms that held me to his toned body. The raw power and strength he wielded and the way he tossed my body around. It left me breathless simply thinking about it. Electricity surging through my bones and fire bursting in my veins at the memory of our actions.

I enjoyed it.

And I hated myself for it.

Work. I needed to work. I needed to type out that itinerary. I walked over to my suitcase and pulled out my laptop, then immediately typed up the itinerary. I made sure it looked as professional as it could. No frilly texts, fonts, or colors. I sent it off to Kenneth before I went to the bathroom, determined to take a shower.

I needed to wash his presence off my skin.

Twenty minutes later, I filled my bedroom with steam as I blasted out of the bathroom. I felt rejuvenated. Reborn. My hair was washed, my body had been scrubbed, and exhaustion was settling in. That meant I could get a decent night’s sleep before my insane work week started. I wrapped the pillowy soft towel around my body and ventured over to my laptop so I could send my mother an email. Let her know I landed safely and that she could stop worrying.

But when I opened up my email, I had something from Kenneth.

Change of plans for tomorrow. Meet me for dinner at eight in the lounge of the hotel. Wear something that makes you feel beautiful.

• Kenneth

My eyes scanned the email over and over again. Something that made me feel beautiful? The hotel had a lounge? I looked up from my laptop and stared at the wall, my mind swirling a thousand times a second.

Did my boss just demand I go on a date with him?

I ignored the email and sent one off to my mother. I wanted her to know I was safe. I also wanted to know how she was doing. If her back was any better from when I last saw her. I hated having to leave her behind to fend for herself, but I knew Paige would check in on her. Make sure she hadn’t fallen and that she didn’t need anything from the store. I didn’t have an international plan on my phone, so I couldn’t pick it up and call her. I leaned against the cushioned back of the desk chair in my hotel suite and hovered the cursor over Kenneth’s email.

I clicked it open and read through the short message again, digesting it as much as I could.

Who in the world did he think he was? Demanding something of me like that. I wasn’t his pleasure toy. He couldn't snap his fingers and demand I be in something pretty so he could flaunt me at his side. I was his secretary, for crying out loud.

I was also a secretary who had just been pressed against his penthouse hotel suite window.

But would he have asked me for something like this if we hadn’t just slept together? Was this somehow his way of telling me he wanted to see more of me? And if it was, then how did I feel about that. Did I want something like that with Kenneth? I mean, I hardly knew the man. My mother was wary of him, that much was for sure.

Was that something I wanted? Going on a date with my boss?

Either way, meeting him for dinner was technically on the agenda. The venue simply switched and a dress code was set forth. And if I was going to figure out what happened to my father as well as see if my new boss had anything to do with it, then I needed to get close to him. Intimate with him. Talk to him in atmospheres that weren’t specifically work-related. By the sound of it, this dinner was exactly that. Another chance at an intimate encounter.

And I could leverage that for my own personal use.

I felt conflicted. On the one hand, he didn’t act like the kind of man that would do something like that to my father. Who would fire a man before a formal investigation into harassment claims women reported my father for. He talked about morals and ethical principles he wanted to instate in his company. He was known for them in the companies he flipped. He seemed to want to run Casual Recreations with those same ethical notions people attached to him in the classes where we studied him and his tactics. This type of thing didn’t fit his persona.

But anyone with enough money could be anything, and I couldn't work for a person that had the potential to do what was done to my father. I couldn't work for Kenneth if he had any hand in the downfall of my father’s career and life. It was that simple. Whether I exposed what he did or simply used it to garner a good reference so I could find another job, that was really my goal. I was past angry. I’d dealt with my father’s death that happened as a result of that firing.

But I couldn't work for him if he had a hand in it.

That was the real issue behind all this.

My fingers flew across the keyboard and I sent him an email back. I agreed to his dinner, telling him I’d see him around eight o’clock. I closed my laptop and dragged myself to bed, exhaustion falling over me like a weighted blanket.

Then I slipped into a slumber, where my mind dreamt of nothing but Kenneth’s hands sliding along my body.